Retrospective: Tomas Finds A New Purpose For His Pocket Gallet Yachting Timer
The 1972 catalog lists it as the Gallet Maritimer, although it says Yachting Timer on the dial. You choose. The new designation is still connected to water use…well, sort of. I hereby announce with all due respect that I turned it into my Gallet Soft-Boiled Egg Timer. And I love it!
I will start with an honest disclaimer today: I have no intention of disrespecting the original purpose of this Gallet tool watch. You know that I am a Gallet enthusiast and brand researcher. I collect Gallet watches, and I enjoy playing with them. Since I don’t sail, I won’t use this Gallet Yachting Timer for its intended purpose. However, I like the design so much that I didn’t want to keep it in a safe. I believe watches should be used, no matter how serious or entertaining a purpose we find for them. At the end of the day, the idea is to have fun and build pleasant memories with the watches we collect.
Soft-boiled eggs
I hated soft-boiled eggs for years. In reality, I hadn’t tried them except for maybe as a kid, but the idea of an egg running all over my plate was scary to me. I don’t remember how old I was, but I tasted Eggs Benedict, and I was hooked. Soft-boiled eggs became my irregular dinner refreshment, especially when I was home alone.
Image: Personal archive, Pedro Matas, @tucayjordan
The tricky part
To prepare perfect soft-boiled eggs is not easy. A soft-boiled egg has a very tight time frame, usually 4–6 minutes, depending on the size and temperature of the egg. The egg may be too hard or still runny a few dozen seconds later. I always timed it with my divers with rotating bezels or a chronograph, depending on what was on my wrist. I had a taste for a soft-boiled egg one day, and a few days after, I grabbed this Yachting Timer. You know what followed…
The first tryout
I am not very sophisticated about preparing soft-boiled eggs. I do not study the size or temperature of the egg. One time, I left it boiling for six minutes, another time for five or four. I always allow myself to be surprised by the result.
Since the idea to turn this Gallet Yachting Timer into my Soft-Boiled Egg Timer popped into my head, I always time my eggs for five minutes. No matter the result, I am always happy, and the eggs taste better. The watch gets closer to the water, and I get closer to the watch. Quite simply, it’s a win-win.
How it works
Or, rather, “how it should work,” because it doesn’t work super precisely. The central chrono hand should make one full revolution of the dial in five minutes. In actuality, it’s a bit slower, so it takes about five minutes and six seconds. If you recalculated it with daily precision in mind, the watch would be quite inaccurate, but there is no point in doing that.
The dial is divided into five triangles, each printed in a different color. The first one is blue, the second is green, the third is yellow, the fourth should be orange, and the last is white, so it is not printed at all. Sadly, my orange triangle is very pale and almost completely faded. Despite that, I still find the dial super entertaining. In contrast to the Gallet Basketball & Football Timer I featured, this printing is not full raster but kind of a mesh structure. It’s very interesting.
Image: eBay
A perfect example
This is how a perfect example of the watch should look. A few years ago, it was listed on eBay, and I was too hesitant to pay the seller’s asking price of about $500. After a few suggestions to reduce the price, I had no success. And then the watch was gone, most probably sold. Why am I saying that?
When a watch I was interested in gets sold, three scenarios can happen. The first is that I don’t even realize it because I already forgot about the watch the moment I put it on my watch list. In the second scenario, I am sad just for the time I am looking at the missed item. In reality, though, I forget about the watch as soon as another thought occupies my mind.
Then, there is a third scenario, the one that happened with that watch above: seeing it being sold truly bugs me. It eats at my brain for days, sometimes weeks, and I blame myself for letting it slip through my fingers. Perhaps these feelings are a bit irrational, but you know how it works. I keep coming back to the old listing and hypnotize myself with it, as if I expect the seller to miraculously relist the watch just because I wanted it. But it’s gone, and I have to make peace with it.
One more chance
So when another Gallet Yachting Timer with colored triangles popped up, I didn’t hesitate much. Of course, it bugged me that the condition was not as good as it was with the previous one, but I went for it.
I have several pocket watches, which are all deep in my safe. This one is not. On the contrary, it sits in my living room, waiting for me to get the taste for the soft-boiled eggs. Sometimes, just looking at it brings the urge to get the water boiling. I have one more idea: I want to make it part of my kitchenware. When I find time, I will make a special wooden holder, and the watch won’t sit on a shelf in the living room but, instead, get a premium spot in the kitchen.
Let’s breathe new life into pocket watches. Feel free to share your ideas about when and how to use your pocket watches in unusual ways.
